Category: Blog Stuff

So, I promised y’all on Wednesday that I’d give y’all a little more info about where I’ve been the last month.

Short answer:

Longer answer:

Fancy!

So, remember when I had those pictures done in January? My wonderfully creative and talented friend Stephenie and I thought that we would do a photo project (we’re still doing it. but that’s under wraps and construction!)…and then thought…but we’re awesome photographers. Why don’t we just make it a business?

And there you have it.

It’s been weeks of paper work and planning and meetings, but we’ve made it official.

We’re entrepreneurs!

This has been a serious undertaking (and we’re still getting things together,) but for those of you that are local to NY or NJ: we officially open for business beginning next month. Feel free to contact me personally using any of the methods here, or you can get hold of both of us via the Roses in Concrete Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

Don’t think that I’m abandoning here. This blog and all of you that read it mean the world to me, and I don’t want to leave y’all! I would say you’ll have to get used to the once or twice a month posts until we can get our business a bit more steady, but I’m not going anywhere.

Hope y’all hang in here with me for this ride! Have a wonderful weekend, y’all. 🙂

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I just want to take a moment to wish you all a happy new year! I hope you rang it in safely and that you have some time to recover (I’ll be at work by the time this post goes live.) Thanks so much for reading my work and all of your comments. I love all of you!

Oh, and I cut my hair Thursday. I’ll show y’all those results on Monday! Have a great weekend!

I love that song so much. (If you don’t know it, I’m going to put up a link so you can hear it. 🙂 )

Anyway.

I know, I know. Feels like I fell off the face of the Earth for a minute there, huh? I missed y’all! 😀

I have so much that I was working on, I had to step away for a bit to make sure I could focus on at least one project at a time. Now, the big project isn’t yet finished, but I’ve made enough leeway on it that I can come back to y’all and keep doing the other aspect of what I love most: giving y’all all of the fashion info and a healthy dose of self-confidence.

So, let me give y’all a few updates:

Regularly scheduled posts will resume on Monday (and yes, Tales from Retail will be back!) I am going to try to stick to three times a week for y’all so you don’t miss me too much.

I will be adding a new feature (coming second week of September) called Fatshionista Cooks. If you follow me on Instagram (and if not, click here to do so, if you wish) you’ve likely seen a lot of my dishes I’ve made and maybe not so much of me in makeup. And the reason for that is…

I’M WRITING A COOKBOOK! For those closest to me, they’re all, this girl’s been writing this cookbook for EONS and we haven’t seen a blessed recipe yet! And that’s true. But as of late I have really been making some headway on organizing my recipes and doing proper testing. I want to share some of the recipes with y’all ahead of the book, because y’all are awesome and have rocked with me for so long. And because each recipe has a story behind it, you’ll be thoroughly entertained…because, well, we know how most of my stories go!

I also have another project brewing, but that’s got to cook for a few months still. So stay tuned for that! 🙂

Also: life is good, I’m feeling pretty positive, and even though the stress gets to me at times, it’s nothing that I can’t handle. 🙂

With that, let me leave y’all with a song to groove into the weekend with. Happy weekend, and I’ll see y’all Monday!

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I mentioned on Twitter the other day that I was working on some photos, and that I would be putting up pictures that were taken with my phone and with my Nikon.

I was then asked if I could tell the difference between the pictures, and which was better.

Honestly? Both are awesome. I got my Nikon to do YouTube with (I know, I promise I’m working on some videos for y’all!) but I use my Samsung (Galaxy 4, soon to be upgraded to a 6) for a lot of my pics too. I think that the key to using either is all about learning your functions and using light to your best advantage.

The second part of a good picture is editing, if that’s your thing. Some pics I edit for color and clarity, and sometimes I just let it be what it is. I’ll talk about what I use to edit my pictures with in a moment. First up, let’s talk about cameras.

So, here are two pictures. Which is my camera, and which is my phone?

Option A

Option B

Anyone? If you’re having a hard time, that’s my point. I’ll tell y’all which was what at the end. 🙂

It’s all about setting and lighting. You can take digital quality pics on a camera phone if you work it properly. Don’t get me wrong, there are some pics I adore my Nikon for. For example:

Man…

My phone can take pictures NEARLY as crisp, but not this crisp. Maybe when I upgrade, that could change. But this Nikon is everything, and when I do my outfit posts I prefer it.

Since I don’t have a tall tripod (yet), using the Nikon for everything is difficult. Hard to take good pictures one handed. Here’s where the phone comes in. For the majority of my nail posts I’m using my phone for the pics, because I can control it with one hand. To make them look super good, I change the mode of the camera. This is best illustrated with selfies.

So, on my Samsung, I have a mode called “Beauty Face.” If you like to Photoshop your selfies a bit before you post them, this mode handles that for you, and all you have to do is pose and snap. Example:

My eye bags are WAY more pronounced in reality…

See? I look all glowy and smooth, and let’s be real. I had no sleep the night before and no water, so I wanted the extra boost. Fly picture in no time.

Now, let’s talk editing. I don’t use Photoshop because I didn’t want to pay all that money for it. I do have something quite similar that’s awesome and free: GIMP. Now, I’m still learning how to work it, so if you’re tech challenged, it may not be for you. I will say there are many tutorials out there if you want to learn more (and I’m taking full advantage of what’s available.) For quick editing (as in, click and fix, or some cropping) I use Picasa (also free.) This is easier, and you can do color and shadow tweaking as you need.

If you’re on the go, and can only edit things on your lunch break (me), then there’s Afterlight. It’s a dollar, and you can do everything that you can do in Picasa (shadows, highlights, temperature, etc.) plus some preset filters (like stuff you’d find on Instagram) right on your phone (available for Apple and Android.) I have it on my iPad, so I put my pics on there and do editing when I have time. Afterlight is just awesome. Want proof? Here’s the before and after of one of my shots. These shots were done on my Galaxy:

Before..

After.

So, I wanted everything brighter, with an emphasis on the bracelet. I increased the temperature (it warms up the colors in your photo) and increased the shadows. Since I used a circle light (aimed over my hand), it looks like I put a spotlight on the bracelet. Pretty cool, huh?

Whew! This is a lot, right? I’m still a novice, so I’m still figuring stuff out as I go along. Most of this was trial and error and playing with settings and thinking I broke something. But you can’t be scared of that–I didn’t know how good my phone camera was until I started looking through the different modes on there. Same with the Nikon: there’s preset functions, but play with the settings till you find something good! That’s really best way to find out what your tech toys can do.

Hope this helps anyone looking to get some good pics for their blogs!

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I want to thank each and every one of you for reading and interacting with me, whether it’s here on the blog, or on any of the various social networks I’m on. I love writing and hanging out with y’all in this space, and you help make me great!

I hope y’all were able to leave 2014 at peace, and that 2015 is everything y’all hope and need for it to be.

Happy New Year!

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Hey people! As you can see, I had a bit of a fall makeover here at Evolution of a Fat Fashionista. I decided to upload a theme that makes it easy to read whether you’re on a computer, tablet, or phone, and made sure to put all of the social links right at the top so you can see all of the things I am on, and follow to your heart’s content.

As a recap, I am on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, and today I am premiering the Facebook page! Please like me and share with your friends!

Later on today, I will have this month’s Glossybox review, and next week I have a pretty epic story post surrounding my travel back to New York.

Its…interesting. To say the least.

Other upcoming features: a fall shopping post, a foundation workshop (post that will become a video), fall nail looks, and other things I’m keeping a secret.

Can’t spoil ALL the fun! 🙂

Thanks for sticking with me, and do remember: the best is yet to come! 🙂

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I live! I know, I kinda fell off the face of the internet there for a bit. I had a million things going on offline (not bad, just unexpected), and now I have the time to catch up on things.

Vacation is awesome like that. Even better because I am not in my apartment.

So I have time to rest and breathe, and catch up on things.

My video: so, I filmed this pretty simple tutorial three times and realized you could see up my nose on the third and best take. I opted to walk away from that for a bit till I can get a better and larger tripod (later this week.) Don’t worry, the YouTube is not abandoned! Just getting more equipment to make it even better. 🙂

Later this week, you will notice the site design will change, so as to include the YouTube link and the new Facebook fan page (coming Friday!)

And finally, you will get some fresh content this week, including a new Nail Adventure as well as a piece on shopping someone else’s closet. Next week, you’ll get footage of some fashion events I will be attending for Fashion Week.

I think that’s all of the new stuff headed y’all’s way. 🙂 My current situation is my legs propped up on the sofa watching Pioneer Woman on Food Network. About to do my nails, of course. See you tomorrow!